Stonehenge dosen't containt oil, are they stupid?
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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No, but people are ready to burn a shit ton of it to go see it though.
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You really have to scroll down google results to find Just Stop Oil's social media due to the incredible publicity this action has generated about climate change resistance. Their Twitter account is https://twitter.com/JustStop_Oil, and they're smashing their fund-raising targets via chuffed.
Man, I've studied history and I still agree with all that they're doing and even wish they had done permanent damage to all the things these protestors have sprayed. The hypocrisy is incredible.
It's just like when Notre-Dame burned, billions started coming in while people in Paris are homeless or must choose between eating or paying rent.
These things are objects, living beings are dying due to our inaction and people would rather spend money to admire a fucking painting than think about it? That's disgusting.
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Contrary to most of the opinions in this thread, I think this (and the van gogh incident) is a great and appropriate protest.
It causes a knee-jerk reaction to be mad that they are harming a precious piece of history and culture, which is a perfect juxtaposition to how the climate change harms our precious natural resources and will harm ourselves, and
It achieves this without actually causing permanent damage to the subject artifact, and
It is incendiary enough to remain in our public consciousness long enough for it to affect the discourse.
I only wish there was a more direct way to protest the people most responsible for the worst effects (oil executives, politicians, etc.), but the truth is that the "average middle-class Westerner" (most of the people who have access to enjoy these particular cultural relics) is globally "one of the worst offenders". While I firmly believe that individuals have less power to enact change than corporations and policymakers, this protest does achieve the goal of causing reflection within people who have the power to make changes.
I'll disagree. I think these actions only entrench the decided.
As in: if you are of your opinion that damaging artifacts is appropriate, given the protest cause, then you're already "sold".
If you feel that these actions are inappropriate, then you have only gotten further away from these actors, and, potentially their message.
I mean that I'm not sure how many undecided or uninformed folks are impressed, convinced or engaged by these destructive protests.
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I'm still not convinced that these guys aren't being fronted by oil conglomerates to make real climate activists look like morons.
Holy shit I've been wanting to say this since they started but figured it would sound too conspiratory. They prey on the most lonely and disillusioned progressives and get them to do stupid things from the feeling of being apart of something.
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Question: What in the flying fuck does Stonehenge have anything to do with big oil companies? 🤔
It's supposed to generate headlines. It has done.
It's newsworthy, unlike when they used to lay in roads.
Meh, fair enough.
Lots of people seem to hate this and I do on some level get it. I'd be happy to talk about whether its a winning strategy or what alternatives there are (I'm not sure personally its the optimum form of activism)
What I would say is the evidence suggests:
- General public do seem to hate this stuff.
- There is a relatively little spill over from the organisation to the wider issue (as in people think these guys are idiots but don't link to climate change or environmentalism more generally).
- It is evidenced to increase the saliance and perceived importance of climate change I.e. people hate them but spend more time thinking climate change is serious than before.
Lastly, what I would say is from my own visceral reaction to the Van Gogh painting: I felt a huge and sudden feeling of cultural loss. That something of our heritage was at risk and we may lose it and initially I was angry and sad but I realised that we are routinely doing this everyday with lost species. Heritage we haven't even been able to document yet. All that is to say it maybe we have a discussion about what the best activism is and who we need to influence and how (I think we need to do better than just think we need everyone on side) but what we shouldn't do is entertain for a moment that the scale of this action isn't proportional and valid to what we face. We are hurtling towards a cliff edge and some people still have their foot on the accelerator. This is the equivalent of worrying about a vase in the boot. I want to save it too but at the moment we are endangering it more through business as usual than through some cornflour.
I have a small issue with the analogy of lost things: throughout history, many things have been lost, living and nonliving, through both action and inaction. It is the nature of our impermanent existence.
But vandalizing our works of art servers our ties to the past and what they might tell us. Yes, we are currently accelerating the loss of species, but they will continue to come and go, regardless of our input. These links, however, can never be recovered. They are intrinsically unique, and their value to humanity is not something they have a right to gamble in a game of political chicken (because let's be honest, it all boils down to governments' responses to the current crisis).
And if this is truly an effort to draw parallels with our impending doom, it's inelegant and ineffective, and I wish they'd put more effort towards actually doing something that makes the polluters want to change, instead of just pissing people off only to get lost in the next bombastic news story.
but they will continue to come and go, regardless of our input
I'm not quite sure you understand the problem with climate change. It's not that "they" will come and go, it's that WE will only go. There's no "coming" back with any reasonable immediacy. Or were you arguing that the stones wouldn't be there for exhibition by the jellyfish that would be the only thing left living in the oceans?
Now, it is my opinion that when Brawndo finally pushes the climate over the tipping point and life as we know it takes its final breath, that natural selection will do what it has always done and though life will change, it will persist in some form. So were humans able to outlast this foreboding obstacle and humanity persists, then so be it, but I honestly doubt they'll give a shit about fucking stonehenge. If there were some life lessons from the past that only stonehenge can communicate, then it has obviously failed.
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Good post. To be honest, when I found out that nothing they did was real, I came to appreciate them. But I don't understand why we prop up fossil fuel in the first place.
If what they do was real it would have a much bigger impact.
It has a lot to do with money and technology. By the time we were able to have electric vehicles, oil companies were loaded and companies like to make money. So they spend money to lobby and keep themselves entrenched. Throw in some good feel bullshit to placate a simple majority of the people and that brings us to today.
They're barking up the wrong rocks.
Should rub their noses in it.
After reading the article, and realizing that what they used isn’t “paint” as we usually think of it, makes me feel less of a homicidal rage.
This is besides the point, but I’m curious about the technical aspects. How do you “spray” cornflour? The second picture looks like it’s in some large cylinder. Is it pressurized, like a fire extinguisher?
If the powder is fine enough you could just blow air across or through a reservoir of it, maybe? That's my best guess like a leaf blower with a bag of powder you pour in
Despite supporting probably all of their goals; I hate them.
Why? They've never actually damaged anything
No one should have to explain why throwing soup on a painting is a dumb way to protest - yes, even if the painting has a glass barrier
In the modern history of protest it’s the stupidest possible way.
Keeps us discussing it though
We talk more about their tactics than the message they're trying to spread, so I don't think we're really discussing the things they'd want us to focus upon.
We only discuss their tactics briefly when they do something dramatic and get on the news.
When people hear about their tactics, ask why they're going so far, and look into environmental issues as a result, I think that can have a much longer lasting impact.
And that's where we disagree. I don't think anybody is researching anything. The average person does not have the drive or attention span for a Step 2.
Plus, I agree with their core ideology, yet I still think people who do this stuff are assholes, and I'm immediately annoyed on the outset. To expect people who aren't invested in climate change to look past the "asshole" is a pretty big ask.
This. I truly believe that humanity will not stop burning fossil fuels until the last drop is gone.
I think it needs to get to a point where the public put pressure on companies and inconveniencing them will force them to choose sides. I'm not sure it's the side of common sense though.
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Yeah, why can't they just quietly trudge towards our own extinction with resignation like the rest of us, instead of making a fuss.
Idk if petite bougeouis theatrics while trudging towards calamity is any better than doing it quietly. Maybe a little. And fuck the Mona Lisa. But defacing an archaeological site (even temporarily) for bougeouis theatrics is just icky
Making a fuss? No.
Being dicks. Self-righteous, performative dicks. Fuck them.